The Strange get Stranger
by SpaceCatSophie
Summary: The world of Hawkins, Indiana is slowly quieting down, returning to normal. Only, is it?
1. Chapter 1

"Is anyone there? Kid?"

Mike whipped his walkie talkie out of his pocket.

"Yeah we're here sir! Is everything okay? Did she close it? Is she okay?"

"Yeah kid, she's unconscious but fine. I'm bringing her over there, and I think Will is coming too. Can you and Steve get some food ready for him? Over."

"Oh, shit." Said Dustin, in response. Because they were not at Joyce's house. They were at an abandoned pumpkin patch with a big hole at 1:00 in the morning, supporting a really puffy Steve.

"What was that kid? Over."

"Nothing!" Mike almost shouted. "Yeah, we will. Over." And quickly turned it off. "Guys?"

They all looked at him. "We kinda need a plan."

"In this town, you need a plan for everything, or else you get killed, so, yeah. A plan would be nice," grumbled Lucas, referring to the imminent danger of the chief of police, who happened to own a bunch of guns.

"Don't be like that, Lucas. Everything's fine now!" protested Mike.

"Yeah." Dustin slugged Lucas on the arm. "It's not like if we don't follow a bunch of steps we'll all be mauled by demodogs.

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION WE PROBABLY WILL DUSTIN"


	2. Chapter 2

ONE HOUR LATER

Back at the Byer's house, plopping an even puffier (turns out, that was possible) Steve onto the couch, giving him a couple blankets and stuffing a pillow under his neck, Dustin watched the others drag a still unconscious Billy onto the porch.

"Dustin," said Mike. "You're our food guy. What should we get out?"

"Well, I find that highly offensive, but definitely some protein stuff and junk food. Nobody cares about health too much after all this."

"Good point, and Eggos too, Dustin, in case El wakes up. Lucas and Max? Can you get pillows and blankets and stuff from Will's room? Thanks guys. Joyce won't wanna be away from Will and neither will Jonathan, and Nancy's probably gonna stay over for moral support and that shit."

Mike was tired, run to the ground by so much stress and so many late nights and all he wanted to do was go to bed, so no one blamed him for uncharacteristic cursing.

"Okay." Mike slid tubes of Pringles and boxes of Eggos into his arms. He popped the Eggos into the toaster, while Dustin rooted around in the fridge for whatever energy giving food he could find, but was mostly unsuccessful, because most of what was in the fridge was a dead demodog.

He did see a Tupperware with leftover ham, but it was wedged behind the demodog and that thing was slimy.

BANG BANG BANG! A frantic pounding on the door made them all jump up from their tasks; they were all relieved though, that they had made it back before anyone else did. Although it had barely been two minutes, and they hadn't foraged up much food.

"Will!" They all shouted, and hurried to the door. Dustin threw it open, expecting three sobbing older people and a drugged Will in their arms, but instead was relieved and horrified at the state of their friend. He was successfully unpossessed, but was half awake in a sweat soaked shirt, breathing raggedly and wobbling considerably, with two teenagers and a mother in a similar condition.

"Why is there a dead teenager on my porch?" Joyce asked.

"Should go change," Will mumbled incoherently as he stumbled to his room.

"Oh my god… Steve?!" Nancy shrieked, running over to him.

"It was my fault," whispered Max.

"Ah, no. It was definitely my fault." Lucas stated.

"Well, it was my brother who beat the shit out of-"

"Well if I wasn't always getting seen by him-"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Nancy. "Is that your brother?" she gestured behind her at the porch. "Tie him up." she added in response to their affirmation.

"What? We can't just-"

"Tie him to a chair in Will's room. Now."

"But-"

"NOW."

Meanwhile, Jonathan and Joyce were getting bombarded with questions. Will wasn't, because he wasn't back yet, but Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce were forced to answer them as best they could. Finally, Mike stopped the unending flow, and allowed them to go change, just as Will slowly walked into the living room. The group sat him down at the table, where they fed him and comforted him, and Max tried to make him laugh, and surprisingly, she was successful once or twice. But in the middle of Lucas telling him what happened in the tunnels, his head hit the table and his breathing slowed down.

Mike laid a hand on Will's thin arm. "Hey, Will, are you okay?"

Will, still slumped over, was starting to sweat.

He moaned. "Will… okay, guys, who needs the couch more, Steve or Will?" They had a small debate about it, in which Steve woke up and yelled at them.

"Shut up you shitheads, I can get off the effing couch." So as he rolled off and fell onto one of the mattresses, Max and Dustin got Will over to the couch.

Jonathan was sitting on the couch next to Will's head, and Nancy was tending to Steve. Joyce was sitting in a chair with a mug of coffee, Lucas and Max were tying up Billy, and Mike and Dustin were sitting on the living room floor close to the couch. Suddenly, the sound of a large car pulling up reached everyone's ears, Lucas and Max raced down the hall, and Mike threw open the door yelling, "El!"

Slamming the car doors, Hopper grunted with the effort of carrying El's small body.

"Get out'd the way," he grunted, dragging his tired feet across the room, supporting El in his arms.

"She's still out?!" Dustin asked shrilly, following him to the living room with everyone else.

"How long's it been?" Lucas said.

"Will she be okay?" Mike inquired worriedly.

"Can I do anything?" asked Joyce.

"I dunno kids, just be quiet and get me some aspirin. Get her to the mattress, Wheeler." The kids nodded a bit dejectedly, but went to their separate tasks. Gently, Mike laid Eleven down on the mattress, trying to hide the fact the he was freaking out. Because she was not awake. Not even close. When he moved her, her eyelashes didn't flutter. She didn't make any noise, and she was breathing so slowly there was a few times Mike was afraid she'd stopped.

He felt a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" He looked up to see Max.

"Y-yeah. I'm fine." he paused for a second."She's not though." he finished quietly.

"Yeah." She sat down next to Steve's head, slumping against the couch. Hopper had sat down on the floor next to Joyce's chair, and Lucas and Dustin had sat down beside max.

Eleven stirred. Mike's arm instinctively reached for her, but Max stopped him.

"I think she needs some rest," she said uncertainly.

Mike shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Everybody sat in an erratic circle, finally resting after a day of insanely weird and traumatic things. Lucas fell asleep on Max's leg, Joyce fell asleep after dragging her chair closer to Will and Jonathan, and Dustin fell asleep on Lucas.

"She'll be all right, Mike" Nancy whispered just before she nodded off, and Mike, against all his brain was telling him, succumbed to his body and fell asleep next to Max, head pressed against her leg.

Jonathan and Hopper started to sleep at around the same time, one next to Will and the other next to Joyce.

But Max… Max was a different story. She stayed up late every night, sneaking out to practice skateboarding,or staying in to read with a flashlight. But not staying up tonight felt… wrong. Especially with one of her only friends traumatized forever and not looking so good on the couch, and El, the famous superpowered mage in what looked a lot like a coma, at least in her opinion.

So she didn't know why when Will woke up, she pretended to be asleep.

"Mike?" he looked around bewilderedly. "Lucas? Dus- oh." He looked over. "E-eleven?" he had only seen her once, when she visited him in the void. She looked a lot different. At first, he panicked slightly because he couldn't see her breathing in the dark, so he grabbed her wrist frantically. To his relief, she had a pulse, but it was really slow. Sighing, he lay back down on the couch.

"Will?" He lept up, looked down at El again. Her eyes were open, and reflecting the moonlight streaming in from the window. And they looked at each other. A look that spoke everything. A look that showed understanding. Gratefulness. Regret. A looked that said, I know, me too, we both had the shittiest childhood possible. Their entire minds were pouring out of them, and Max could just stare in wonder. Until El closed her eyes, and Will eased back onto the pillows.

Now Max could sleep. And she did, along with the rest of the crew.


End file.
